Florentine Gardens Springfield

The house at 42 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

Francis D. Foot was one of ten children born to Homer and Delia Foot, and grew up in Springfield, in his father’s house at the corner of Maple and Central Streets. Homer Foot had been one of the many self-made men of 19th century Springfield, beginning his career in 1825 as a 14-year-old clerk in the old Dwight store at the corner of Main and State Streets. However, by the age of 21 Homer Foot purchased the company, and it went on to become one of the area’s leading hardware retailers throughout the rest of the 19th century.

Like his older brother Homer, Jr., Francis Foot grew up working as a clerk in their father’s store, and they both became partners in the company, in 1866 and 1879, respectively. The younger Homer later built a house on Mulberry Street, but Francis never married, and lived with his parents until their deaths in the late 1890s. Around 1901 the old family home was sold to department store magnate Andrew Wallace, and a year later he moved into this newly-built home on Florentine Gardens, in the fashionable and newly-developed Forest Park Heights neighborhood. Like most of the other houses in the neighborhood, it features a Colonial Revival-style design, although it is somewhat unusual in that it has an asymmetrical front facade, with a wing on the southern side of the home.

By the time he moved into this house, Francis Foot was the president of Homer Foot & Co., and he would hold this position for many years. The 1910 census shows him living here with his brother Cleveland and sister Maria, both of whom were also unmarried, and the family also employed two live-in servants. Maria died in 1914, but Francis and Cleveland lived here until Francis’s death in 1928.

The house was subsequently sold to Nelson J. Hibbard, the secretary and treasurer of Perfection Grate & Stoker Company. He and his wife Gertrude were living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, and by this point he had become the president and treasurer of the company. They lived here for the rest of their lives, until Gertrude’s death in 1956 and his death in 1959, and since then very little has changed in this scene. The exterior of the house remains remarkably well-preserved, down to small details such as the balustrade over the front porch and the Gothic-style window panes, and it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The house at 26 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

This Colonial Revival-style house was built in 1901, and was originally the home of Leander and Nellie Day. A year earlier, during the 1900 census, they had lived a few blocks away from here, where they rented half of a two-family home on Firglade Avenue before moving into this house. Leander worked a traveling salesman, while Nellie was the owner of N. S. Day, an “artistic novelties” company that had a factory on Bridge Street in Springfield and a store at Union Square in New York City. Leander was 55 during the 1900 census, and Nellie was 48, and they lived with their daughter Bessie, their son Jesse, and Nellie’s mother, Elizabeth Phelps.

By the 1910 census, Nellie was still living in this house and was still listed as being married to Leander, although he apparently was not living here at the time. Instead, she lived here with her mother Elizabeth, her sister Anna, and Anna’s husband, Charles F. Crocker. The family was still here until the late 1910s, but by 1920 Nellie had moved around the corner to Cherryvale Avenue, and this house was sold to Harry B. Ellis, the treasurer of the Garrettson-Ellis Lumber Company. He was about 37 at the time, and lived here with his wife Ethel, their children Robert and Helen, and two servants. However, they were apparently only here for a few years, because by 1922 they had moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The house was subsequently sold to W. Walter Cummings and his wife Edith, who were both in their late 40s at the time. Like the previous owner, Walter was a corporate treasurer, holding that position for many years with the Consolidated Dry Goods Company, a Springfield-based company affiliated with Forbes & Wallace. Walter and Edith were still living here when the first photo was taken in the late 1930s, and they would remain here for many more years. Walter died in 1952, and Edith appears is listed in city directories as late as 1958. Since then, the house has seen few changes, and survives as one of the many well-preserved turn-of-the-century homes in the Forest Park Heights Historic District.

The house at 53 Florentine Gardens, at the corner of Pineywoods Avenue in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

Most of the homes that were built in Forest Park at the turn of the 20th century are considered to be works of Colonial Revival architecture, although this category encompasses a wide variety of styles. The area’s developers took advantage of this, creating a neighborhood with a remarkable diversity in the designs of the houses. One of the more common styles was a modification of the American Foursquare design, which is seen here in this house on Florentine Gardens. Built around 1903, it has many similarities to its neighbors, such as the house at 43 Florentine Gardens, but it still has unique features of its own.

The first owner of this house was built for George M. Faulkner, an insurance agent who lived here for a few years. However, by 1908 he had moved out, and the house had been sold to William and Lydia Laird. Originally from Vermont, they were in their mid-40s when they moved to Springfield, and by the 1910 census William was working as a floorwalker for a department store. However, Lydia died a year later, and soon after William sold the house and returned to Vermont, where he was living with his brother by the 1920 census.

Following William Laird’s departure, the house was sold to Harry and Florence Sprague, who were living here by at least 1915. Harry was an architect, and he designed a number of buildings in the city, particularly apartment blocks and commercial buildings. He designed the western addition to the Classical High School in 1922, and perhaps his most architecturally significant work was the Tarbell-Waters building at the corner of Chestnut and Bridge Streets. Along with this, he also designed some of the apartment buildings in the present-day Quadrangle-Mattoon Historic District, including the ones at 97 and 127 Spring Street and 82-86 Pearl Street.

By the 1920 census, the Spragues were living here with their 14 year old daughter Dorothy and Florence’s widowed sister, Nettie J. Reed. Dorothy left home in the 1920s, and Nettie died in 1933, but Harry and Florence were still living here when the first photo was taken. They would remain here for the rest of their lives, until Harry’s death in 1950 and Florence’s in 1967. Since then, the house has been well-preserved, and like the rest of the neighborhood it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

The house at 43 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

William H. Moore was a conductor for the Boston and Albany Railroad, and in 1901 he moved into this newly-built house in Forest Park, along with his wife Annie and their two teenaged daughters, Elsie and Carolyn. After living here for about a decade, Elsie married Richard W. Upson in 1911, and a year later Carolyn married Harold B. Adams, a young dentist who lived nearby on Spruceland Avenue. However, their mother Annie died several months after Elsie’s wedding, and William subsequently moved to Longmeadow with her and Richard.

After their marriage, Carolyn and Harold continued living here in this house, with Harold commuting from here to his office on Main Street near the corner of Worthington Street. After less than two years of marriage, though, Carolyn died in 1914 from complications following the birth of their only child, Burton. Harold later left this house and moved into an apartment on Sumner Avenue, where he and Burton were living by the 1920 census.

In the meantime, this house was sold to Arthur I. Franklin, a shoe polish factory manager who lived here for a few years with his wife Elizabeth and their three children. In 1922, though, the house was sold again, to Anson and Frances Viets. Anson was the president and treasurer of the Springfield-based New Method Loan Company, and he lived here in this house until his death in 1938, around the same time that the first photo was taken. In the census two years later, Frances was still living here, along with her daughters, Marion and Frances, and her nice, who was also named Frances. She would remain until 1951, when she finally sold the property.

Nearly 80 years have passed since the first photo was taken, and very little has changed in the appearance of the house. As is the case with many similar homes in the Forest Park neighborhood, the decorative balustrade has disappeared from the top of the porch, but otherwise the house remains well-preserved in its Colonial-Revival appearance. Today, like the rest of the surrounding neighborhood, it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The house at 39 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

The development of the Forest Park neighborhood at the turn of the 20th century attracted many of the city’s upper middle class residents, including insurance agent Joseph O. Daniels, who moved into this house after it was built in 1908. He and his wife Mary were both about 40 years old at the time, and their only child, Joseph Jr., was about 11. They went on to live here for about a decade, but by the 1920 census the family had decidedly humbler living arrangements in the Victoria Hotel, a cheap residential hotel on State Street in a building that had been previously been the home of the YMCA.

In 1920, this house was being rented to Robins C. Vivian, an English-born paint merchant who was living here with his wife Ethel and their two daughters, Ethel and Emily. He was one of the incorporators of the Springfield-based New England Paint Supply Company, and he lived here for many years, eventually purchasing the house. By the time the first photo was taken, he and Ethel were still living here, and he was listed in the city directory as the secretary and treasurer of the paint company. However, within a few years he evidently changed occupations, and was working as a railroad clerk. Like the previous owner of the house, he also ended up at the Victoria Hotel, where he was living by the late 1940s.

The house was subsequently purchased by Alden and Elizabeth Blankenship, who lived here until selling the house in 1949. During this time, Alden worked as the superintendent of schools in Springfield, and he would later go on to become superintendent in Tacoma, Washington and Gary, Indiana. Since then, the house has remained essentially unchanged. Like the other homes in the neighborhood, it has been well-maintained in its original appearance, and it now forms part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

The house at 33 Florentine Gardens in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

The house in 2017:

Seymour Warren was a traveling salesman who was living in West Springfield at the turn of the 20th century, along with his wife Cora, their young son Daniel, and Cora’s mother Ann. However, around 1901 they moved into this newly-built house in Springfield’s fashionable Forest Park neighborhood, where they lived for a few years. Ann died in 1906, and a few weeks later Cora was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She died about two months later, and within a year Seymour listed the house for sale. In the process, he also sold most of the furnishings, with newspaper classified ads inviting the public to come here and browse through the items in the house.

By 1910, the house was owned by an I. J. DeGraffe, who rented it to piano store owner William B. Lincoln and his family. They did not appear to have lived here for long, though, because by the middle of the decade it was owned by Albert E. Stephens. He was the president of A. E. Stephens & Co., a general contracting company that was responsible for a number of public buildings in the Northeast. Much of the company’s work was done in upstate New York, including some of the buildings on the campus of Syracuse University, but other projects closer to home included Springfield’s Municipal Group, the Masonic Building on State Street, and the High School of Commerce.

Stephens lived here with his wife Madge and several of their adult children, including their daughter Helen, who continued to live here even after her marriage to William Pratt in the mid-1920s. Albert died in 1930, but Madge was still here when the first photo was taken, along with Helen, William, and their daughter Elizabeth. The family sold the house a few years later in 1941, but not much has changed in this scene since then. The house remains well-preserved, complete with the same exterior of clapboards on the first floor and shingles on the upper floors. Along with the rest of the neighborhood, it is now part of the Forest Park Heights Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

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